For Calgary interior designer Karen Fron, creating a home is as much about psychology as design principles.

To create truly comfortable, sophisticated and eclectic homes, she says, you have to go beyond picking out a few pretty things and painting a wall. She focuses on three key areas: function, followed by the person’s emotional connection to the space and then evoking an atmosphere that’s authentic to them.

“This is the whole psychology behind the design, to create an interior that each person feels comfortable in,” she says. “Everybody deserves to live in a space that’s beautiful. It’s about creating a space that makes you feel at home — not recreating glossy magazine pages.”

Before any redesign, Fron looks first at how the space functions, ensuring it’s being used to its potential — which includes addressing work flow, wall configuration and furniture placement.

“If that space isn’t working, maybe it’s better used as an office or a homework room for their children. Or maybe, we’re better to take out a wall and open and reconfigure the space for the inhabitants of the home,” Fron says.

The next step is to address the emotional connection the person has with the various pieces and materials in the room. She says it’s like dealing with any issue in life — it’s hard to get to the core of the problem: often, people just know they don’t feel good in a space that’s not working for them.

For a place to feel like home, the people have to feel connected to it. This, Fron says, is where the esthetic of beauty comes in.

“The whole idea that beauty is subjective — I don’t believe that. There has to be a sense of timelessness,” she says. “If you look at art, for example, there’s art from the 1600s that still inspires us. Why? Because certainly it may have gone out of style, but we still get inspired because it’s just good art.”

To find everlasting pieces for a home, she encourages people to pick furniture and accessories that mean something to them, rather than to pick a yellow vase because it was in a magazine or buy a teal sofa because it’s the season’s trendy colour. Pieces could be new, but she also sees second-hand items as an affordable, more sustainable option.

In a society compelled to have the “latest and greatest,” Fron draws inspiration from an E.E. Cummings quote: “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

“For many years, I’ve had that in my head. Even when I go shopping, I ask myself, ‘Am I just buying this because it’s the thing to do, or is this really, really me?’ ” Fron says. “And that’s how I focus my design.”

A space that truly reflects the people who live there and their relationships with the objects it contains results in a feeling of authenticity, she says, contrasting this to viewing a show home, where the space can feel empty even though it’s fully decorated.

“The energy isn’t true,” she says. “It’s the human relationships with the objects in the room that gives it this authentic feeling.”

Colour adds another element to composing an individual space. The psychology behind colour theory is nothing new, but choosing colours and accessories is an extremely personal and emotional experience for each person, Fron says.

Her advice: “Surround yourself with colours that make you comfortable. There’s really no wrong answer.”

Establishing equilibrium between good design and a uniquely personal space for each person is no easy feat. Once the space is functioning for her client, Fron takes the time to know them, asking questions to draw out the right answers.

Taking cues from how they dress, what kind of hobbies they have, how they speak and whether they’re vivacious or quiet, Fron has learned to read her clients and develop a deep understanding of what they want to feel when they’re home.

“You really get into their skin, because I’m trying to give them what they want, but can’t articulate,” she says. “It’s a very intimate relationship.”

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